The Overwhelm.

Welp, pretty much everybody is completely numb to the reality of human suffering and ecological destruction that is underway at this very moment, and quite likely has already crossed the threshold from which there is no turning back. As a species, we have just crested the top of an unknown treacherous rollercoaster, and those of use that are concerned, desiring truth and justice for all people and the planet, and generally “caring” about the world and her peoples, we are left to feel as if we were crammed into the back of a ride we never wanted to be on in the first place, and all around us are mindless automatons waving their hands in the air and screaming in joy because commercials and celebrities have led them to believe that this ride is the one that is certain to surpass all the rest.

At this moment, I’m naming this phenomena of human relational apathy as

“The Overwhelm”

The immensity of intensity is deafening
One cannot even begin to comprehend
The complexity of the stress being swept
up and neglected by the masses as they
struggle to survive.

After their eardrums burst they hear the screaming no more
and after eating nothing but cardboard, the senses grow dull
after sleeping next to moldy walls next to leaky sinks
with stinky blankets and the same sheets for weeks
and never enough to go around
and not a hand there to help
without a number to call
and no shower to get clean
with a relationship to shame
on a first name basis
with the judgmental voices
in the head demanding to remain unnamed
how’s a person supposed to just brush that off
wake up the next day and feel ready to play the game
where each word will be judged
and presume to determine the worth
of the heart beating heavy in the chest
that’s not even dreaming of success
just dreaming of the feeling of a fresh apple
scraping teeth clean from the shit that’s been talked
now echoing endlessly in the chamber of the heart
that is home to all things that would die before revealing
to other human beings, and from which a hide and seek game
is a calculated insane, both functional and disassociated from the
truth of the pain.

The reality is, that right now
Life is incredibly fucking overwhelming
Like a bad dream never ending
for those on the receiving end of the
Relentless regressive racist and oppressive
xenophopic transgressions against mostly brown skinned
nations and people, mostly committed by deranged OR well organized
groups of young white men
that are fearful that what they’ve been doing to humanity since their memories of ancestors began,
is now somehow ironically going to start happening to them,
so they claim #whitegenocide
into an echo chamber of puff pastry white fragile hate-filled minds
and so the world punches them in the face
the one form of violence God condones
to give bigots a taste of blood in their mouths
for the blood they have spilled
that belonged once to copper toned
or brown skinned men, women, and children that resisted them
but that they still defeated, enslaved, and mistreated and to this day
continue to viciously hate them
having organized entirely systemic strategies
of priviliged first world societies based on calculated stratification
of the resource-based social divisions
between those living comfortably and those that are suffering
those that work for a living, and those who’s life is just working
to put food on their plate, even days old and stale
and to make them all believe, that the “other” is the true evil
all the while the masters remain greedy, lustful, and seething
full of hatred for themselves, their mothers, and the creator,
for how could they know Love, and also be the Greatest
of all that ever took something for another in an unequal trade
of all that ever took advantage of another that didn’t fully understand
of all that was designed to disenfranchise those that looked different or didn’t think alike
and of all that ever destroyed lives, likes a young boy plays with toys
telling stories of imaginary things to anyone willing to listen
while knowing they’re not true, but secretly believing them
because there’s an agenda unseen
lurking beneath the lies and betrayal
and agenda of continued domination and destruction of the Sacred
a vanquished people can’t remember their roots or trust their God
so the destroyers first attack sovereignty of the ability to trust
while questioning the truth of what we know to be Just
So that when they choose to ensare a brother of ours
we doubt what is true and trust them to decide
and believe those with power speak the truth
and watch our backs
and we doubt all the stories saying something more sinister is happening
and that people are plotting to take away everything
including our lives, and the world for Granchildren
of the Generations left to prosper in this mighty human village

And it’s only too late, if this falls on deaf ears,
and if hunger for truth has been pacified by fear
and if the will to thrive subsides and is replaced by false pride
of an identity that lacks any meaningful history
and is hiding from the shadow of its own contour of becoming
running from the facts of the actual reality
of genocide, warfare, slavery, incarceration,
prejudice, hate, racism, misogyny, ghettoization,
miseducation, bullying, starvation, homelessness,
rape culture and domestic abuse, victim blaming,
slut shaming, and white-boy apologists,

It’s a new day in the United States of America
but the same old shit seems to be roaring back to life
with a racist, rich asshole now running the white house
and way too much bad news on the feed everyday
so the Overwhelm is tightening the grip
on the fucks that remain to be given.

Crazy Wisdom

"Yeshe Tsogyal says, 'Space and the awareness of Space, this is the basic message."
~DharmaOcean morning chant~

"All Encompassing Space" is the refuge name I was given by Reggie Ray when I took the Refuge Vow into the Dharmaocean lineage of the Kagyu practicing lineage of Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism. This lineage follows the teachings of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and is known as the "Crazy Wisdom" lineage, in the spirit of the radical awakened state of Trungpa Rinpoche and his teachers.

Yeshe Tsogyal, also known as "Victorious Ocean of Wisdom" is was a foundational female buddha and master teacher in the Tibetan buddhist traditions, living in the 8th century C.E. The opening quotation to this post is a daily morning chant in the dharmaocean lineage during the Dathun month-long winter meditation intensive in Crestone, CO, where I took refuge in January 2016.